Stories from Friday, December 28, 2001

The children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Raymond and Anita Real of McCook are hosting a card shower in honor of the couple's 50th wedding anniversary. They were married Jan. 1, 1952. Cards will reach them at 104 West L, McCook, NE 69001...

Rachelle Lee Roehlk and Ashly L. Ochsner were united in marriage on August 18, 2001, at the Broadway Presbyterian Church in Rock Island, Ill. The bride is the daughter of Ron and Roberta Roehlk of Davenport, Iowa. She is the director of Exl Dance Productions in Batavia, Ill. ...

Matt and Suzy Falkinburg of Colorado, announce the birth of a son, Tyler Benjamin, on Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001, at Longmont, Colo. He weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces. He has one brother, Hayden. Grandparents are Ron and Zona Fritz of rural McCook, and Steve and Loretta Falkinburg of rural Lexington...

Spring cleaning is long gone. A fall overhaul has passed. Even a chance for a holiday spruce-up has come and gone. Only a few days remain to eke out a major cleaning of your home. With better things to do, cleaning always seems to fall by the wayside. The priority of cleaning usually falls somewhere between taking down Christmas lights before June, rose-budding my radishes and running the New York City marathon...

A McCook man, Jim Dyke of South McCook used two of Southwest Nebraska's biggest weed species, sunflowers and Russian thistles, to develop a synthetic rubber in 1942. An article in the May 1 Gazette said that the non-professional chemist had been experimenting on the project about a year. Mr. Dyke had lost an eye in the experimentation process in December of 1941...

Dear Editor, I was very upset by the "Buddy" story in Wednesday's Gazette. How anyone could treat an animal like that is beyond comprehension. The police need to release the name of "Buddy's" tormenters so that we, the public, can make sure he/she does not get his/her clutches on another poor animal...

Dear Editor, I just finished reading "Buddy's Last Day" that told the story of the malnourished and dehydrated German shorthair. As I read the article and looked sadly at the picture of the dog only a day before he died, I can't help but wonder what kind of person could have caused such pain on something so dependent on them...

We really are all they have. They rely on us utterly for shelter, food and water. When they are hurt, they turn to us. When they are lonely, they turn to us. We really are all they have. That is why it is so heartbreaking when we hear of abuse, neglect and abandonment...

As you enter McCook from the north and west, it is immediately apparent that things changed considerably in this area in 2001. One of the first sights, upon entering McCook from the north, is the new Work Ethic Camp, which started receiving offenders in April of 2001. ...

One of the sad things about human behavior is that so many people are willing to settle for less. They accept what they perceive to be their lot in life and do little if anything to change it. This attitude became widespread during the '60s and has doggedly held on. ...